What Gamergate should have taught us about the ‘alt-right’ + Let’s talk about language.

“It’s understandable that the world didn’t much care about Gamergate. The 2014 hashtag campaign, ostensibly founded to protest about perceived ethical failures in games journalism, clearly thrived on hate – even though many of those who aligned themselves with the movement either denied there was a problem with harassment, or wrote it off as an unfortunate side effect. Sure, women, minorities and progressive voices within the industry were suddenly living in fear. Sure, those who spoke out in their defence were quickly silenced through exhausting bursts of online abuse. But that wasn’t why people supported it, right? They were disenfranchised, felt ignored, and wanted to see a systematic change.

Is this all sounding rather familiar now? Does it remind you of something? If you’re just discovering the world of angry, anonymous online dudes masquerading as victims – hi, come in. Some of us have been here for a while.”

I’m not a gamer so I didn’t know much about Gamergate- but anyway, this is a brilliant article. It maps out the structure and language of this movement. My suspicions concerning where they were going popped up a while back when they began using the term SJW (social justice warrior)- and really, more of us should have been alarmed. To call that term loaded is a monumental understatement. It manages to ridicule social justice and stigmatise people who want it in one swoop. And it’s all downhill from there.

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80 comments on “What Gamergate should have taught us about the ‘alt-right’ + Let’s talk about language.”

Someone commented like that on my blog today, accusing me of being disconnected from reality then saying it is easy for illegal immigrants in the U.S. to vote. What to do? Treat them with courtesy, disbelieve them, don’t bother with their demands. And back up people abused by them.

Now you know how I feel when SOM or wotsisname with the lion mouths off!

Anti-theists and rationalists are often former Fundamentalists who take over Fundamentalist ways of thinking even when they cease to believe in God. And it can be fun, putting someone down like that; it can be altruistic, trying to rescue people from the harm Christianity does, but also people do Sceptic for the lulz.

Unfortunately at this particular time I can’t refute that. There is indeed a sector of sceptics that don’t understand the most basic notions of scepticism and embrace it as if it were a religion received from authority. I’d like to ban them or at least force them to read a few things, but (also) unfortunately that’s impossible.

Hello Clare. I think you are nicer and more tolerant than I. I would have felt compelled to point out the error of their information. But in the past when I have tried to do that most simply get into a yelling scream fit of name calling and other insults. Be well. Hugs

I think the way they are acting is in conflict with what they want then. IF they want to be included in a group, they should be nice to the group. So they feel put on, feel left out, and want to have some support, friends, even feel powerful, I can understand that. However by attacking everyone else and attacking every idea they can’t understand is what is excluding them in the first place. IF they want girls to notice them the wrong way to get to be with them is to insult and frighten them. Instead of working their way into a group it seems to me they stomp their feet, throw a tantrum , demand to be the center of attention, and when they don’t get it they sulk. I hope I summed it up correctly. I did not follow gamergate but I did follow the election and that was the way I seen the Trump people act. The candidate, his people, and his supporters. Thanks. Hugs

I was just thinking the same thing a couple of days ago. It all reminds me too much about a radio documentary I listened to about Rawanda 10 years post genocide. Most people would never have conceived murdering their neighbours until they finally felt they had no choice. It’s horrible, but easy to see it happen anywhere.

My mum said she didn’t but she grew up in a rural town. I suspect most knew that the Jewish people were rounded up and chose not to question it. The Japanese were rounded up in Canada and US. I guess when it comes right down to it, people choose self preservation over the alternative. As a species we really are no different from any other animals. Kind of sad really that we haven’t evolved beyond that.

I think you’re right about tribes. So much weight is placed on the opinion of the perceived leaders of these groups, and any dissent results in ostracism, so the members bleat publicly and loudly in support of even the worst statements for fear of being considered an ‘other’.

“Groupthink requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the “ingroup” produces an “illusion of invulnerability” (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the “ingroup” significantly overrates its own abilities in decision-making and significantly underrates the abilities of its opponents (the “outgroup”). Furthermore, groupthink can produce dehumanizing actions against the “outgroup”.”https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink

Of course I’m sure not everyone bleating sees their behaviour as supporting these terrible people and ideas, but we all know asshole love the anonymity of social media…

You’re on a roll. It is precisely authority by groupthink- rather than evidence. The problem with that is evidently that a whole mob can agree lighting a candle cures cancer, and yet it won’t. So the immediate future is not bright with hope and success- just candlelight.

The three million illegals voting shit came from some dude’s Twit spread, I believe, by Trump himself. The data is yet to be seen.

There was an interesting article in Rolling Stone rightfully criticizing WP for the lack of scrutiny of its sources. Ironically, the criticized WP article alleged that many news media reprint their news from Russian propaganda outlets, such as RT and Sputnik. It’s funny to see an article exposing fake news accused of spreading fake news.

As far as news go, I prefer to get reports of actual events (not comments or opinions) from reporters on the ground. Few news sources afford reporters on the ground these days. Most news are quoting other online sources. A lot of “news” is taken from Twitter and Facebook. Lots of BS flying around these days.

Sadly, many people think that if “it’s all over the Internet, it must be true”. The social media are designed to spread rumors and BS like crazy with the ubiquitous “share” buttons. I’m glad Google and Facebook are now considering cutting the access to ad revenue to sites spreading fake news.

It’s funny (not really) how the lady in the CNN youtube video is sincerely convinced that Obama allowed illegals to vote. She and the host are looking at each other, both shaking heads in disbelief that the other party can be so naive not to see the obvious.

And if you turn off the computer or the TV, those things just disappear in a puff. The media is like the Palantir from the Lord of the Rings. You look into it, and you get hooked and immediately exposed to evil.

Fascinating article. I’m not a “gamer” either so I really had no idea what Gamergate was, but it’s connection and similarities to the alt right movement are undeniable. I feel so sad for the poor, maligned, white male bigots, misogynists and homophobes who are SO misunderstood and marginalized. Oh, my heart just breaks for them.

“Perhaps the true lesson of Gamergate was that the media is culturally unequipped to deal with the forces actively driving these online movements.”

I read an article the day before yesterday that said the same thing about Trump — the media is unequipped to deal with him.

I watched a fascinating video series not long ago, analyzing Gamergate and the tactics they used. Interestingly, enough, these same tactics were used to elect Trump.

After watching that series, I found this analysis and overview of the video series which was published this past June.

“Understanding this dynamic is essential because GG gave rise to more hate mobs and more targeted campaigns against anyone and anything critical of male, white privilege and/or dominance. Beyond that, however, Danskin’s argument about stretching the spectrum of rationality is of course relevant to political discourses (especially considering the current American elections and Trump mania):

This intentional polarization from small minorities within a community is largely what movements like GamerGate are for: to react so negatively as to make a reasonable statement seem like the far end of the spectrum and to make the half-way point between reasonable and bug-fuck irrational seem like the moderate position.”

[snip] Danskin’s portrayal of Angry Jack as someone whose investment in the cause is rooted in deeper anxieties about his privilege and, very simply, about change, is both convincing and scary.

Btw, part one of the video series I mentioned (“Angry Jack”) is listed in that link. In part 4 he explains that GG didn’t begin with gamers. It began on 4chan’s Politically Incorrect, a sub-forum popular with anti-feminists and neo-Nazis.

Just skimmed through the article, very interesting. One line caught my eye: “To what extent do they know they’re an anti-feminist hate mob?” – It’s insane that we’re even asking that. This movement has reduced both Feminism and the Feminist to a simplistic caricature, and they propose the dismissal/destruction of all feminism based on that misleading caricature. It’s textbook fallacious reasoning.
I’ll have a look at the series tonight, in case anyone is interested: Why are you so angry? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y8XgGhXkTQ&list=PLJA_jUddXvY62dhVThbeegLPpvQlR4CjF

Now, what’s interesting about this realization (when kicking the hornets nest, the hornets will retaliate), is that this phenomena also happened in both pre-election and post-election, and continues as is evident in the cabinet choices.

“The thing about hornets is they don’t only sting the person who kicks the hive.”

As was clearly evident both in the video you posted, and during the elections, they only believe what they want to believe.

I had two personal interactions with Yiannopoulos on twitter so I know hornets nests 🙂 My take away from it is he/they use a lot of smoke and mirrors. Automatic likes/retweets by the mile. In both cases only two individuals actually joined the discussion to defend his views. The one time he gained massive media attention by “trending on twitter” was a carefully crafted scam- in all likelihood also by purchasing re-tweets.
But back to the hornets nests, I think we have no choice but kicking them. Especially within the sceptic/atheist world. In fact we probably have the biggest responsibility of all. If we don’t call out fallacious reasoning, who will? The religious crowd?

I just watched the YouTube video. How can people be so divorced from reality. They believe something even when shown it is not true. They prefer huge blanket statements over reason. There is no way you could convince that lady that millions of illegals did not vote. Sadly fox news has hurt this country more than I can say. I would like to have seen her reaction to the two know voter frauds that were reported, both by trump supporters. Hugs

I’m not a gamer but I did follow gamergate with a sort of morbid curiosity. The rudeness went both ways. Of the two I’d say the anti-gamergaters were the worse, they actually called in bomb threats on gamergate meetings, on top of being insufferably preachy which no one likes.

The rudeness of women having rights vs. women being treated as 2nd class citizens? Are those things really equivalent?
Gamer-things aside, what I’ve always found annoying about Yiannopoulos is he’s a scam artist. From faking followers/likes/comments to not paying his employees- to writing stories that are verifiably untrue.

If I recall, the main complaint of GG was that the gaming magazines and websites were pushing “politically correct” games on them that they didn’t want to play. The magazines were saying: “here is a great game about depressed feminist cat lady problems, its great!” and gamers were saying no, we want hot chicks and explosions. It descended into all sorts of name calling and rudeness.
I think a good parallel is ESPN: ESPN spent months acting like Bruce Jenner cutting off his own dick was the greatest thing ever which to your average ESPN viewer – the NASCAR and beer types – sounds awful. This was on top of other things ESPN has done a lot over the past couple of years to alienate their core audience, and the ESPN audience is responding by – get this, its amazing – NOT WATCHING!
The gamers, instead of silently unplug their computers, decided to go on the offensive. Yes they were quite rude about it.

From what I know of you I’m confident you’re a strong proponent of ethics. So how does that fit into the debate? And I don’t mean regarding Jenner. I think the whole world should STOP talking about Jenner.

Internal translation is part of life. Mike’s mother always introduced me as *her closest friend and confidant*. I could interpret that two different ways, but as she was born in 1921, I decided to go with the one where we could all have a pleasant time 😀

I am a gamer, and I don’t only want games with “chicks” and explosions. Explosions are boring and I’m not into “chicks”.
The vast majority of games are already about that, what’s the problem of a few games that don’t follow that ridiculous formula.
If the gamersgaters were so pissed off at someone daring to do a review of games that don’t cater to their juvenile fantasies, they should realise that the world doesn’t revolve around them and they don’t represent all gamers.
You don’t see the movie audience go into a hissy fit because movie journalists like more artisitc movies, instead of the latest fast and furious number 26.
Why should gamers then be excused for being immature little twats?

Wanted to add that I find it somewhat ridiculous how any game that doesn’t cater to heterosexual male teenagers are suddenly deemed politically correct.
As if they can’t fathom how someone might like games that tell a story and doesn’t throw an explosion in your face every second. I’m not being politically correct if I enjoy a game like “The witness” (a game with absolutely no explosions or chicks). I’m just being myself (I love a wide variety of games of course).

Political correctness is the most misused word of all time. I’ve seen people being accused of political correctness by flat earthers and holocaust deniers. Do you believe the earth is approximately round and that the holocaust happened? Congratulations, you’re politically correct! Are you against forcing gays and muslims into camps? Congratulations, you’re politically correct!
Judging by how those two words get thrown around, the only way to escape being called politically correct is to rape muslim children, kick your wife bloody whenever she’s late with dinner and put a few homosexuals on fire.
If you’re not the most despicable person in the world, someone even more extreme will eventually call you politically correct.
Sorry for pulling the thread off course. I’m just sick and tired of being told that my entire personality and my likes and dislikes are just political correctness, so when I see those words it “triggers me” I guess. 🙂

It’s got the Christian Right’s fingerprints all over it. In their mindset they can call gays pedophiles and that’s okay, but someone says Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas and it’s a War on Christmas:

What do you think of this. Sad. I agree it is time Bill O’Reilly got what should be coming to him. As said in this piece, when someone went to his home to interview him, he went nuts saying how dare they do such a thing. Yet he must be a god above all others as he routinely does that to other lower humans. Hugs

Bill O’Reilly, IMO, is a latent, bottom, homosexual male who hates his own sexuality SO much that he projects it onto everyone else. He’s not a god, he’s a glorified sissy who longs not to be such. He’s a rich, powerful gay man who hates his “gayness” and thus condemns all those he decides are “gay” to everlasting pain. This is a “man” more base-animal than human, and, yet, because our country is filled with idiots who chose stupidity over enlightenment, we’re condemned to listen to his hate and his evil, wicked words. We’re fucked; the world is fucked, and idiots who give this piece of shit of a “man” a voice prove this. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

It wasn’t the fact that the reviews existed, it was the way the games were being pushed. Take, for example, the tribalism and condescension in your own tone: your games are wonderful, so much better than hot chicks and explosions. People who like hot chicks and explosions are juvenile and therefore inferior to you, the enlightened gamer, who makes colorful puzzles or whatever. They should move out of their mom’s basement and maybe try touching a real boobie, etc.
They got sick of it and hit back.

No, but that people don’t like being preached at or talked down to. Maybe GGers are juvenile, not being a gamer I have all sorts of negative prejudices against them, but they are also paying customers of these magazines.
It is a funny phenomena, hating your audience. Sports media hates its audience, gaming media hates its audience, political parties hate their audience, and then they are surprised when the audience walks, or in the case of GG, boycott or investigate collusion. Its economic suicide by smugness. ESPN rubbing Bruce Jenner’s severed member in the face of their audience will lose them core viewers and not convince new demographics to get into NASCAR.

I’m not sure that’s a fair assessment. From what I understood some woman created a game, it received good reviews- and that resulted in her being personally targeted for harassment. So in essence it’s not that the Gamergate people want games they’re interested in, those exist and are in fact the majority. What they don’t want is attention being given to what they’re not personally interested in.

And the reviewer had been sleeping with her. The relationship was over at the time but that wasn’t immediately clear.
So GG made a big deal about the fact that the game developer and the magazine were literally in bed together. The reaction of the game developer was: oh, you hate me because I am a woman and are obsessed with my private life, get out of your mother’s basement you subhumans.
So I think it breaks down like this: the core audience of the mags suspects collusion between the mags and developers. There is also a culture gap: the mags and developers hate their core audience think they should play more enlightened games. It is a building power-keg of resentment. The match was the failure to disclose a relationship which seemed to confirm the suspicions of the gamers. The mags and developers, rather than apologize, accuse the gamers of being what they always suspected them of being, a bunch of anti-social sexists.

Of course there was harassment, this is the internet, you get harassed. But 1) the harassment went both ways and the anti-gg crowd crossed over into real life with bomb threats 2) the shrieks of harassment were used to avoid taking responsibility. You can’t scream harassment when someone calls you out for getting your ex to write a puff piece on your video game.

Did it rise to the level of legal harassment- as for example defined by UK law: “…repeated attempts to impose unwanted communications and contact upon a victim in a manner that could be expected to cause distress or fear in any reasonable person.”

A lot of people did say they hated the movie because the characters were women. That was the main complaint of every commenter I read. I suppose we visit completely different sites or something. I also don’t get the logic of people being mad at others calling them misogynists,racist or homophobic, and then start attacking women and minorities as some form of revenge. Congratulations, you just proved their point (using the general “you” here, not specific).

And there are tons of great movies/games with female/minority characters that still get complaints for having them included. And it’s not like all movies with white male heterosexual characters are so great. Shouldn’t they in the name of fairness also attack all those other piss poor movies out there, even if those movies only contain their favorite white straight males?
Anyway, good night again. Sorry for writing another post and monopolizing the discussion somewhat.

Maybe you should consider that the rest of us are sick and tired of being told that all gamers are supposed to like boobs and explosions in order to be seen as true gamers. Some of us are also tired of being called politically correct and SJWs if we actually enjoy a game containing strong female or minority characters. I’ve seen gamersgaters attack anyone that didn’t think Mafia 3 committed a grave sin by including a black character f.ex.

Those of us that don’t mind women, gays or ethnic minorities in games are constantly told we’re not real gamers, and those of us that are women are often told we were never gamers to begin with. I’ve heard from gamersgaters that women only started playing games to ruin it for men. That’s ridiculous of course considering I started playing games a little child, so did every woman I know.
Why haven’t you considered that we have just as much a right to “hit back” as those who consider themselves gamergaters?

I usually use the word juvenile as a synonym for teenage but I’m guessing that’s incorrect English.
I like several things that can be called juvenile myself, including superhero movies. I begrudge no one the right to enjoy whatever they want. I would be annoyed however if almost every movie was a superhero movies and journalists were being attacked and random feminists got death threats for praising the few non-superhero movies out there. I would consider those people twats yes but except for the attack on the new ghostbusters movie (lead by gamersgaters mind you), the movie audience seems more mature and open for variety than us gamers.

Oh well. Good evening and let’s all go enjoy a game of our choosing. 🙂 Hopefully we’ll always have some variety of games to choose between.

Saw the last comment only after I posted. I followed the supposed “scandal” after it started, and I didn’t see any actual review of her game (I might remember it wrong however). I saw that her ex had made a small comment about it in a long list of games but I didn’t see how that would have made much of a difference.

Anyway, as you said, the relationship was over so why all the hate? Why did they choose to attack her instead of the journalist? Why do every gamergater I encounter claim that it’s about ethics in journalism, yet keep on posting videos of feminists that have nothing to do with journalism? The vast majority of game journalists are male, but they still choose to say that women are responsible. Why doesn’t any of them seem to give a damn about the widespread corruption in journalism that has been well known for a long time. I don’t remember any women being responsible in the kane and lynch scandal f.ex, yet feminists are the danger to game journalism? It makes absolutely no freaking sense. It’s the gamergaters’ widespread lies and illogical obsession with feminists that frightens me the most, and reminds me of some trump supporters that choose to jump on every story that lets them pour our their hate, and then ignores all the facts after.

Mind also that I followed this craziness’ from inside, I see you said you’re not a gamer, so you probably didn’t see the worst of it. I see still see gamersgaters running down every major gaming fora and their focus is still on attacking women, gays and minorities every time a game developer dares include one of the aforementioned. It’s getting somewhat tiresome.

Obs: I can be pretty direct in the way I write about stuff, but I’m not mad at anyone in this discussion. Just annoyed at the whole crazy gang that has ruined several gaming fora for me. Cheers. 🙂

The ghostbusters movie was a good example of what I’m talking about. No one was complaining about making a movie with girl ghostbusters. It was the fact that it was being advertised as if you for some reason did not find it to your tastes, you hated women.
You see this all the time with crappy-low budget Christian movies: “watch the movie Hollywood doesn’t want you to see! They hate it because they hate Christians!” Yeah… or maybe they hate the poor acting and worse writing.
If someone says “Like my product or you are anti-woman/gay/minority/etc!” you know they just have a crappy product and the proper response is to tell them to fuck off.
Have a nice night!

I am a gamer and I didn’t follow gamergate because it was and is, an American phenomenon. Japanese game developers bring a level of social conscience into the culture of their games that developers like Blizzard [World of Warcraft] could never manage because…WoW /players/ would revolt. They like sexist, racist gaming culture where violence is the only measure of success.

Games actually do reflect the society which produced them, far more successfully than, say, movies, because games are interactive. Especially MMO’s [online games with thousands of players interacting at once].

I don’t know why there is such a deep divide between the sexes in the US, but there is, and I suspect it’s a symptom of a much deeper malaise.

I think the important question is: Is it a real divide or a fabricated one? As Fool’s Musings mentioned above the Tutsis and Hutus lived peacefully in Rwanda until hatred was developed and fostered as a political tool.

I don’t know. Haven US men and women lived peacefully together until gamergate? Or did gamergate simply expose the hatred a certain stratum of men in the US seem to feel for women? Heaven forbid women should horn in on one of the last bastions of male domination. 😉

“Japanese game developers bring a level of social conscience into the culture of their games that developers like Blizzard [World of Warcraft] could never manage because…WoW /players/ would revolt. They like sexist, racist gaming culture where violence is the only measure of success.”

What do you think about the Japanese developed games, Rapelay or the Battle Raper series? What’s up with that?

Sorry, never heard of either game. I assume from the titles that they’re both awful, and that you believe this negates my comments about WoW, despite the fact that World of Warcraft is perhaps the best known MMO in the world, with a past and present player base in the…squillions? Compared to some horrible game that no one’s heard of? Clearly, the fact that worse games exist is a validation of the culture of WoW and the core values of Blizzard?

And now an apology for biting your head off. It’s been a hell of a week with no energy left over for play. When I talk about social conscience in Japanese games I’m talking about the ones I know only – like Square Enix.

Just looked up the developer of Rapelay and it is Japanese but…
‘Illusion is a company from Yokohama, Japan famous for developing eroge with 3D graphics. Due to Illusion’s policy, its games are not allowed to be sold or used outside Japan, and official support is only given in Japanese and for use in Japan. Wikipedia’

Need to remember, also, that the Japanese think nothing of reading explicit Manga on public transport. They have a very different attitude to sex than most Westerners.

❤ ❤ ❤ Now I've watched the Angry Jack videos, which allege the opposite of DP- no, he wasn't sleeping with her, etc. However, since I find the phrase "rubbing Bruce Jenner's severed member in their faces" offensive- what I have now is so much nicer than what I had before- I will give less credence to DP. If you can be truthful, you don’t need to be horrible. ❤ ❤ ❤

@ Linn. We really should distinguish between video games and MMOs. I played video games with the Offspring. That was my introduction to gaming. After that, however, I quickly transitioned to MMOs.

There are a lot of teenagers playing MMOs too – Barren’s chat anyone? – but the rpg type MMOs I’ve played seem to have a more adult focus.

The jewel amongst Western MMO developers, imho, is Arenanet for Guild Wars II. The storyline includes at least 1 openly gay couple that I’m aware of, and there is no ‘us’ against ‘them’ focus based simply on ‘race’.

Gamergate may have felt global, but it only involved a smallish segment of gamers world wide.

I agree with your comment about japanese games above, but since I don’t have an account I couldn’t like it unfortunately. They often bring up some interesting issues and usually have more varied characters. On the surface they seem to have even more of a “boob focus” than western games, but they had strong female characters when many western games still used women as only a prize for the male character.
I find that the message boards concerning japanese games are somewhat nicer as well with less misogyny and homophobia, but that’s just anecdotal on my part of course.

I don’t play mmos as gaming to me is a relaxing pastime for when I’m alone. I prefer Rpgs of all kinds, both western and japanese. Dislike pure shooters and action games though I’ve played a few of those as well. As a kid, I would play f.ex Wolfenstein, racing games and lemmins with the other girls. Ah. Good times. No angry internet guys to tell us that we shouldn’t play games because we were girls. Anyone that had anything to say had to say it to our face.
The internet is great in many ways, but it’s sad to see that it helps create divides instead of connecting people.